ALCESTIS 233
The just-dead lady : ay, establish here
I' the house again Alkestis, bring about
Comfort and succor to Admetos so ! 1530
I will go lie in wait for Death, black-stoled
King of the corpses ! I shall find him, sure,
Drinking, beside the tomb, o' the sacrifice :
And if I lie in ambuscade, and leap
Out of my lair, and seize — encircle him isss
Till one hand join the other round about —
There lives not who shall pull him out from me,
Rib-mauled, before he let the woman go !
But even say I miss the booty, — say,
Death comes not to the boltered blood, — why then,
Down go I, to the unsunned dwelling-place 1541
Of Kore and the king there, — make demand,
Confident I shall bring Alkestis back.
So as to put her in the hands of him
My host, that housed me, never drove me off : 1545
Though stricken with sore sorrow, hid the stroke.
Being a noble heart and honoring me !
Who of Thessalians, more than this man, loves
The stranger ? ^ Who, that now inhabits Greece ?
Wherefore he shall not say the man was vile 1550
Whom he befriended, — native noble heart ! "
aSO, one look vpward, as if Zeus might laugh
Approval of his human progeny, —
One summons of the whole magnific franne.
Each sinew to its service, — up he caught, 1555
And over shoulder cast, the lion-shag.
Let the club go, — for had he not those hands f
And so went striding off, on that straight way
Leads to Larissa and the suhurh tomb.
^ Hospitality was a cardi-nal virtue of the Greeks.
